I’ve audited dozens of WooCommerce stores, and the same mistakes come up again and again. It’s not that people are careless—it’s that WooCommerce has a ton of settings, and some of the most important ones are buried. Here are the ones I see forgotten most often, and what to do about them.
**1. Currency and currency position**
By default, WooCommerce uses your store’s base currency, but the position of the symbol might be wrong for your locale. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > General and check the currency and position. If you’re in the US, you want USD and left position. If you’re in Europe, you might want EUR and right position. This seems trivial, but it affects how prices are displayed, and a misplaced symbol looks unprofessional.
**2. Guest checkout**
WooCommerce allows guest checkout by default, but sometimes themes or plugins disable it. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Accounts and Privacy and make sure “Allow customers to place orders without an account” is checked. Forcing account creation is a conversion killer. Let people buy as guests, and offer them the option to create an account after purchase.
**3. Shipping zones and methods**
Even if you only sell digital products, you should set up at least one shipping zone. Why? Because if you ever add a physical product, you won’t have to scramble. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping and add a zone for your country. Then add a flat rate method. For digital products, you can disable shipping entirely, but I recommend leaving a zone with free shipping as a fallback.
**4. Tax rates**
WooCommerce’s tax system is powerful but confusing. The most common mistake is not setting up tax rates at all. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Tax and enable tax calculations. Then add a standard rate for your state or country. If you’re not sure, consult a tax professional. But don’t just leave it off—you could be liable for uncollected taxes.
**5. Email notifications**
WooCommerce sends emails for new orders, cancelled orders, etc. But these emails often land in spam because they use the default WordPress mail function. Fix this by installing an SMTP plugin like WP Mail SMTP and connecting it to a transactional email service like SendGrid or Mailgun. Then go to WooCommerce > Settings > Emails and customize the templates to match your brand. Test every email by placing a test order.
**6. Coupon restrictions**
If you use coupons, check the restrictions. By default, a coupon can be used by anyone, but you can limit it to specific emails, products, or minimum spend. Go to Marketing > Coupons and edit each coupon to set usage limits and expiry dates. I’ve seen stores lose money because a coupon was left active indefinitely.
**7. Inventory management**
If you sell physical products, enable stock management in WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Inventory. Set low stock thresholds and enable out-of-stock notifications. For digital products, you can ignore this, but if you sell licenses or limited quantities, you might want to track inventory manually.
**8. Checkout fields**
The default checkout fields might not suit your needs. You can add or remove fields using a plugin like Checkout Field Editor. For example, if you only ship within the US, you can remove the country field. Or add a field for a gift message. Keep it simple—every extra field reduces conversion.
**9. Permalinks (again)**
I mentioned this in another post, but it’s worth repeating: set your permalinks to “Post name” before you add products. If you change it later, you’ll need redirects. Go to Settings > Permalinks and choose “Post name”. Then go to WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced and ensure the product permalink base is set to something clean like “/product/”.
**10. Analytics and tracking**
WooCommerce has built-in analytics, but you should also connect Google Analytics. Use a plugin like MonsterInsights or GA Google Analytics to add your tracking code. Then set up goals for purchases. Without analytics, you’re flying blind.
**11. Backup and security**
This isn’t a WooCommerce setting per se, but it’s critical. Install UpdraftPlus and schedule daily backups to cloud storage. Install Wordfence and enable two-factor authentication for your admin account. These two steps alone will save you from most disasters.
**12. The setting you’ll forget: “Enable taxes”**
This is the big one. In WooCommerce > Settings > General, there’s a checkbox for “Enable taxes and tax calculations”. It’s easy to miss, and if it’s unchecked, your tax settings won’t work. Double-check it.
**How to avoid forgetting these**
Create a checklist. I keep a Google Doc with all the settings I need to change, and I go through it every time I set up a new store. It takes 20 minutes and saves hours of debugging. You can download my exact checklist in the MakingShop toolkit—it includes all these settings plus copy-paste values.
WooCommerce is powerful, but it’s not set-and-forget. Spend an hour going through these settings, and your store will be more reliable, more professional, and more profitable.